great things

Have you noticed how rarely the actual words “Super Bowl” appear in ads anywhere, or even sometimes in media stories? That’s because the NFL has somehow protected the title to the extent that one of these years even the color commentator will be forced to call it the The Big Game.

Anyway, I ended up helping out with the game program magazine for the event, so I saw proofs of all the ads. One featured a list of major sporting events that have or will soon take place in Motown. (NBA Finals, NCAA Final Four, etc.) The ad originally mentioned the “Super Bowl” on this list, then was revise to “Big Game.” Apparently that was still too close for comfort, so they abstracted it even further to, believe it or not, “Great Things.” (Hey, wanna come over Sunday? I’ve having a Great Things party! It’ll be sup--I mean, awesome!)

The moral of the story, of course, is that lawyers and ad money ruin everything.

A couple of XL-related links:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060203

I was all geared up to predict a win for Seattle, because it seems like too many people are overlooking them. But then I read Sports Guy’s take--he puts together a strong case for the Steelers.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=klosterman/blog/Monday

Then there’s this. Author Chuck Klosterman has been blogging in Detroit this week for ESPN, and the results have been hilarious. Read this:

Why would anyone buy a T-shirt (or a hat, or an ascot, or a waterproof matador cape) that merely promotes "Super Bowl XL"? An inordinate percentage of the available items in the Renaissance Center's gift kiosks do not feature the logos of the Seahawks or the Steelers; they generically advertise the abstract existence of a football game. This would be like going to see Marilyn Manson at Madison Square Garden and buying a $22 T-shirt that said, "THEATRICAL, DRUG-FUELED ROCK CONCERT." It reminds me of the nonspecific commercials TV networks like NBC run that promote the channel itself, almost as if they assume there are actually people who privately think, "I have no idea what's on television right now, but I better check NBC first. I get the impression they're especially confident about the quality of their current programming."

Chuck even takes on one of my favorite targets this week, the overhyped movie “Crash”:

...the big winner [of the SAG Awards] was "Crash," a movie designed for people in Los Angeles who just figured out that racism was "complex" (and must therefore be secretly central to every conversation any two Americans ever have). I wish one of the bears from "Grizzly Man" would eat Matt Dillon and Ludacris.

Amen. It takes a while to get through the 500,000 or so words he wrote this week, but it’s worth it.

Simmons won me over, I’m predicting a Steelers victory. But in my heart I’m rooting for the Seahawks, dammit.